


kneel/keel

by rewire



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Family Feels, Gen, agenda about languages is blatant..., implied xs if you squint because I have more than one agenda, little bit au with backgrounds but i think it's pretty understandable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 21:30:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21326992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rewire/pseuds/rewire
Summary: He is a sword without a shield. For the first time in his life since his “father” had robbed him of his birthright, Xanxus di Vongola is without a home.
Relationships: Sawada Tsunayoshi & Xanxus, Superbi Squalo & Xanxus
Comments: 9
Kudos: 131
Collections: 2019 KHR Winter Remix Fest Round 1: Prompt Fic





	kneel/keel

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt #64: “You are here, at the end of a moment, at the end of the world. You are here, on the edge of the ocean, where the story ends.”  
I kind of went fast and loose with this one tbh. Some of the inspiration is taken from “Come From Away”, the musical that the quote comes from. This is a pretty generic sci-fi au, so no prior knowledge is necessary to read it!

The Arsella Colony collapses with all the grace of an ending: the beauty of a tidal wave, the simplicity of a cliff’s edge. This far away, there are no details to be seen. Only the generalities of a world ending. It is the end of a story told over nine generations. A colony founded on the edges of the known universe, built via sweat and blood, is returned back to the desolation of vacuum in a single night.

Every ending is also the beginning of something new. Though right now, it doesn’t feel like it.

Xanxus stares out over the field of stars and tries not to curse. It’s probably better that there’s nothing breakable on hand. The urge to shatter something burns at his fingertips.

Across from him, the bubble of atmosphere hovering over Arsella crumples into itself. The two great walls of psionic force keeping the earth and sky apart—the clamshell walls of the world—close their jaws. The pearl of the Nine Rings shatters into the vacuum of space.

In Ixian, the word for “shield” and “sky-dome” are the same. Xanxus rolls it over his tongue as he keeps watching, tastes the syllables of home. He’s standing on the deck of one of the Vongola’s many ships, windows cleared to show the scene below him.

He is a sword without a shield. For the first time in his life since his “father” had robbed him of his birthright, Xanxus di Vongola is without a home.

Sound doesn’t travel in space, but Xanxus still thinks he can hear it when the life support goes. The colony is (_was_) a wide plane of atmosphere contained on a rocky moon. As the walls of psionic force keeping it contained collapse, all that air vents out into space, pale as the first winter snow.

Darkness sweeps across the moon as the lights still on in the colony go out. Sentimentality burns beneath his skin, but Xanxus forces himself to watch the lights go, one by one, until all that is left is the dim husk of his birthplace. Only then does he turn away.

Behind him, just to his right shoulder, is Squalo. He’s been waiting since Xanxus came up here and for once, he’s been silent. Arsella was his home too, after all.

Xanxus tilts his head silently, and Squalo answers the unspoken cue. “We haven’t gotten any word on the saboteurs yet, Boss.” The moon-pale length of his hair spills over his shoulder as he shakes his head. “None of the witnesses have anything useful, and the one prisoner we have isn’t talking.”

Xanxus pauses for the microsecond it takes to digest that information before turning away from the control deck. He is the only surviving leader of the Vongola. He needs to solve this.

(His father is dead. Xanxus is the lone leader left to the Vongola systems. The thought is not as comforting as he once thought it would be.)

A headache sinks its claws behind his eyes. Squalo follows him, his boots clacking on the deck. “Hey, what are we doing? All the civilians are evacuated, but we only have so many supplies. We can’t stay in space forever.”

“Shut up.” Says Xanxus. “I’ve got a plan.”

“It would be nice to know what the plan is.” Squalo replies, but despite that he falls silent.

It’s a testament to how long they’ve known each other that he doesn’t press for more. The gesture is both trust in Xanxus and a probable suspicion of what the plan is; Squalo didn’t get to be Xanxus’s right hand man via stupidity after all, and there are only so many things that they can do in a situation like this.

“Have any more of our people been rescued from… the disaster zone?” Xanxus asks. Even as he walks away he’s pulling up his Ring, tapping into the collective information network of the Vongola ships. Feedback is a brand-iron burn down his nerves—a reminder that he hasn’t been accepted by the Tri-Ni-Sette and probably never will be—but he grits his teeth and bears it. Information flowers beneath his fingertips, lists of casualties, lives reduced down to statistics.

“None since the last call we put out two kels ago.” Squalo’s hair ripples as he shakes his head, mouth tight. “We’ve kept looking, but if anyone’s down there, we can’t find them.”

Xanxus clicks his tongue. Anger is a well-worn companion, burning clear and bright at the thought of _his people_, down there amidst the ruins. “Keep looking, we won’t give up until all of the atmosphere has left the colony.”

“Sure.” Squalo says, activating his own Ring. “But, boss—” He cuts himself off, voice uneasy.

“What?”

Squalo pauses. “It’s the ships. The people are getting restless.”

“How bad is it?” Xanxus asks.

“…They’ve started drinking,” replies Squalo.

Xanxus raises an eyebrow. He understands the impulse but, “It can’t be that bad.”

Wordlessly, Squalo pulls up a vidfeed on his ring. The sound is set low, but Xanxus can still hear the distant roar of a drinking song. It’s devastatingly out of tune, held together only by shared grief and homesickness. In the foreground, Lussuria has shoved his face into the camera’s field of view, sunglasses pulled down to reveal his eyes gone wide.

“We’ve got to start moving soon, Squalo dear. The people aren’t—” distantly, glass shatters, “—going to stand still for much longer. We’ve broken out a case of vodka, but it’s not going to last forever. They want to know where we’re going. Tell Boss we need to get a move on.”

There’s a roar of laughter from behind him, and someone starts sobbing. Lussuria hisses out a curse, waving towards someone off-screen. “There’s too much grief here. We need somewhere to go, at least temporarily. Lussuria out.”

Squalo raises an eyebrow at him. “The shitty civilians need a place to reset, Boss. One that isn’t the still-trembling corpse of their homeland.”

Xanxus is unfortunately low on places to do so. The attack on Arsella had crippled them, and none of the Nine Rings had a place open to stay.

Xanxus himself, as the bloody hand of Timoteo’s reign, doesn’t exactly have any safe harbors to call upon either. Except perhaps one. He doesn’t want to. It would bring the exact same kind of attention onto them that destroyed his home, but—

What are they, if not the blade of the Vongola? Xanxus knows his guardians like the back of his hand, knows the fierce loyalty they have to a cause, knows that if he says _guard_, nothing will break behind their arms. He has to trust in that.

There are no favors owed to him by his last port of call, but then again, when are there ever, between family?

Xanxus holds the shattered pearl of Arsella in his mind, hisses out a curse, and pulls up ansible contact on his Ring. “Give me a minute.” With fingers that do not tremble only by force of will, he hits call. The ansible signal connects within milliseconds, almost as if they had been waiting for his call.

“This is Namimori, Colony NX-8027, designated star K-59. Yamamoto Takeshi speaking. What can I do for you?” The voice that comes out the other side of the Ansible line is ridiculously young, speaking in strongly accented Ixian.

Behind him, Squalo sucks in a sharp breath. He was there five years ago. He knows who lives in Namimori.

Xanxus ignores it. He doesn’t want to be doing this, and the additional acknowledgement of what he has to ask is just the wrong side of painful. Instead of thinking of it, he focuses on recalling Ansible formalities as he returns, “Greetings to Namimori, this is Xanxus di Vongola, formerly of Arsella, Colony VX-9152, designated star X-78, requesting temporary shelter.” His words are in Nimaae, the native language of Namimori. Courtesy was important, after all.

The boy’s voice on the other end of the line goes ever so slightly distant, gains an eerie sort of calm. His Nimaae is crisp-clear, edges sharp as a winter frost. “Acknowledged Arsella. Hold for reconnection.”

There’s a moment of quiet from the other end before the boy’s voice picks back up. “Sending you over to the boss now.”

An obnoxiously cheerful jingle ensues, and Xanxus spares half a thought to curse whoever made the Ansible system in the first place. The fucking jingle was impossible to get rid of, and only got worse with repetition.

Thankfully it only rings a couple of times before a sharp little _click _sounds from the other end. And then there’s a familiar voice speaking, and Xanxus feels emotion crash into him like the hold of a gravity well, like the settling of mountains after an earthquake. “Cousin?”

“Tsunayoshi.” Xanxus returns. The name is heavy on his tongue. “I need a favor.”

“Of course,” Tsuna says. There’s an unfamiliar steadiness to his voice, something he’d found in the time since Xanxus had last called, lending steel to his spine.

No matter how long it’s been, the response still makes Xanxus’s hackles rise. “Don’t just agree like that, you don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”

“I don’t need to know, cousin.” Tsuna says. His voice is light around the word. Cousin. Like a family isn’t everything Xanxus has loved and hated for his entire life. “You wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important.”

It’s true. Equally true that Xanxus still hates calling in the first place. “Arsella is gone.” He hears Tsuna take a sharp breath from the other end of the line, and continues before he can say anything. “My people need a place to stay. I need a place to stay.”

The words, spoken aloud, sound like he’s trying to coordinate a playdate for nearly a thousand people at once. Like this is something that will blow over in the morning. He’ll turn around, and Arsella will be back again, whole as if it had never happened. His father will be alive. By his side, Squalo is tense, waiting for Tsuna’s response.

There’s a brief moment of muffled conversation from the other end of the connection, and then Tsuna says, “I’ll send you a warp point. We’ve only got room for about 700 people right now, but Gokudera is working on clearing more room, so just hold on. We’ve got you.”

The words are generous, and Xanxus closes his eyes for a second. “Thank you.”

“No problem. I’ll send you the details via data packet. Travel safe.”

And with a small click, Tsuna’s voice cuts off.

By his side, Squalo takes a moment, to see if Xanxus is going to say anything. He doesn’t. “Oi, shitty boss, does anyone else even know about the brat’s home?”

Xanxus hasn’t been back in more than five years now, hasn’t sent a message in more than two. “No. I wouldn’t be going there if we had any other options, either.”

Squalo makes a _tch, _and pulls additional information up on his Ring. Xanxus’s mouth twists and he continues, “Call Mammon and start pre-warp. The minute we’re sure no one else is down there, I want to get moving.”

“Shall do, boss.” Squalo starts sending messages, and Xanxus looks back at his own ring, swiping away the list of names written out in damning font. There will be time to mourn later. For now, he checks in on the rescue efforts, still searching the corpse of the colony below him.

* * *

Three hours, and two more souls lifted from a half-ruined life support pod later, Arsella is declared completely uninhabitable. Xanxus spares one last glance before he turns away for good.

He can’t look back. Not when he needs to lead. He tightens his fist, waits out the screech of feedback from his Ring, and calls Mammon, stationed in the engine room. “There’s no one left. Start the warp.”

Mammon’s voice is a dry whisper, more than half static itself as they reply, “Acknowledged. Warp protocol initiating.”

Around him, the orange lights of pre-warp start flashing around the command deck in a 3-1-3 pattern, a sign of what was to come. Xanxus takes the time to get seated and strap himself in, bracing himself for warp.

There’s a brief jingle, and Levi comes on over the announcement system. “This is Leviathan, hailing to all Vongola ships. We are in formation to begin warp. This is your last official warning to get strapped in before launch. T-minus 2 minutes and counting.”

Xanxus’s ring gives a knife-sharp shriek and begins counting down. He grits his teeth again. One minute until launch, Squalo runs into the command center, throwing himself into a chair and harness.

“Cutting it close.” Xanxus says.

Squalo finishes his last buckle and makes a rude gesture. “I ran into an unavoidable delay. I’m here now though.”

Xanxus raises an eyebrow and doesn’t comment. As the last seconds tick down before warp, he doesn’t look at the stars outside the window. He looks at Squalo instead, at the way his hands are sword-steady around his armrests. He’s always had steady hands, no matter what they’ve gone through.

He’s still looking when the warp engine engages, spaces turning inside out, every reflection fracturing into prisms. Shadows split into daybreak. For one heartbeat, everything exists everywhere. Xanxus can taste the stars. It feels like his head is being flipped inside out, like his skull is nothing but a metal pan, brain rattling around inside it.

He loses time for a second.

When he comes to, it’s to the chime of stable reality around him, a pre-recorded announcement ringing out over the ship.

“…arrived in stable matter once again. If you experience any of the following symptoms, report to the med bay immediately. Nausea, vomiting, headaches, muscle cramps, tunnel vision, visions of another reality, sudden or gradual hearing loss, and/or the firm belief that you are not who you were before this warp. Again, please report to the medbay immediately. We hope you had a safe journey.”

As the announcement fades out, Xanxus stretches in place, unclipping himself from his seat.

Squalo is still sitting in his seat when Xanxus looks over at him. His hands are still steady. It’s reassuring.

His bones finish settling back into his skin, and Xanxus gets up. “Let’s go meet the brat, shall we?”

Squalo yawns, showing his teeth. It’s a predator’s grace, momentary relaxation before returning to the hunt. “Let’s.”

Tsuna had given them a port to dock in, and Xanxus collects his guardians before taking a shuttle over to it. Namimori was the same kind of colony that Arsella was, a plain of atmosphere contained over a rocky moon, dotted with space ports on the edges.

Mammon is once again at the shuttle’s controls; the Varia’s pilot wasn’t about to let anyone control a ship they were flying on.

Xanxus’s fingers twitch as he gets nearer to their destination. He can see his guardians note his emotional state, and in the next moment, choose to ignore it. Assholes. As the shuttle turns towards the moon, Squalo starts yelling at Levi, which is familiar enough to be soothing to the both of them, probably.

Finally, they reach the port. There’s a click, as Mammon brings the shuttle into the dock. Another click follows the first, as the shuttle’s atmosphere connects to Namimori’s systems. The faint smell of fresh cut grass seeps into the air around them.

Xanxus breathes in deep and then stands up, wrapping pride around him like a velvet cloak. When he tilts his head, his guardians fall into line behind him, and they walk towards the dock as one.

Tsuna is waiting for them.

He has his own compliment of guardians with him, a teenager with silver hair and a wildcat’s ferocity standing at his right shoulder.

Tradition indicates that Xanxus should bow when approaching the young leader of Namimori. He nods his head instead; it’s more than he would give anyone else.

The teen at his right shoulder bristles at the gesture, but Tsuna holds up a hand. “It’s ok, Hayato.”

When he turns back to the Varia, his expression is a mix of warm and wry. “Long time no see, Xanxus.” Tsuna’s Ixian is heavily accented, and he uses a particularly archaic form of _see, _something that implies heart-to-heart discussion as well as physical presence. His expression says it’s not a mistake in vocabulary.

Xanxus is of the Vongola. He does not wince. He does regret though, not finding a way to send a message to Tsuna. It was better, that Namimori had time to grow without danger of being attacked, but silence wounded just as surely as a dagger between the ribs.

“Well met, Tsunayoshi.” Xanxus replies. It’s the traditional greeting in Nimaae, an acknowledgement of home, of safety.

It’s been years since Xanxus has seen Tsuna, years since he had been an angry teenager sent out to visit the Nine Rings’ systems. At the time—furious, wounded by his father’s betrayal, convinced that his blood was all he was worth—he had crashed into Namimori with all the grace of a drunk man on fire.

There had been a place for him to land here, once.

Now, ring heavy on his finger, the weight of the Vongola’s souls on his shoulders, Xanxus asks for that place again, jumps with only Tsuna’s word to go on.

He keeps his chin up when he says, “I need a place for my people to stay for a while. A week, and we can be gone.”

Tsuna is taller than he had remembered, but no less awkward when he grins. “Take all the time you need, cousin.” He turns over his shoulder to gesture to the port behind them. When he turns back, there’s something burning in his eyes. It’s the warmth of a hearth fire, the light of the sun. “Let Namimori shield you for a while.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for round one of winter remix fest! A little late, but life got to me. Please go check out the other amazing fics in the collection, they’re all fantastic.
> 
> Please forgive any errors, it’s been a long week and this is unbeta’d. I'd love it if you commented!
> 
> I’m on twitter @wire_writer if you’d like to chat <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [crown/fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22028206) by [Morcai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morcai/pseuds/Morcai)


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